SPAWN SPAWN: WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES, BEHIND THE SCENES – PART TWO “BEHIND THE SCENES”

SPAWN: WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES, BEHIND THE SCENES – PART TWO

12/4/2021

SPAWN ANTHOLOGY “BEHIND THE SCENES” – PART TWO

SPAWN: WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES, edited by award-winning author and anthology editor Deborah Sheldon, will be released worldwide by IFWG Publishing Australia on 3 May 2021. Spawn is a selection of the darkest Australian fiction penned by established authors and fresh new voices. The stories range from the gothic and phantasmagorical, through the demonic and supernatural, to the dystopian and sci-fi.

In this four-part series exclusive to Ginger Nuts of Horror, most of the contributors have agreed to pull aside the curtain and reveal the inspiration behind their nightmarish tales.
“Part Two” includes insights from writers Sean Williams, Paul Mannering, Samantha Murray, Robyn O’Sullivan, and Geraldine Borella.

Sean Williams on “Family Unit”

It would be somewhat scandalous, perhaps even incriminating, to suggest that “Family Unit” is based on real life. Like all stories, though, there is a certain amount of the real contained within. It is also, if you squint at it just right, one of the most personal stories I’ve ever written.
Perhaps that’s why it was so damned hard to write. I recoiled from even starting it out of feelings of dismay, shame, and horror that only (perversely) made me want to write it more. Not until the final of many deadlines arrived did I put pen to paper and finally get the ghastly thing down.

In a sense, “Family Unit” is itself a horrific offspring that I won’t disown, but am glad to have out of me at last.

The wellspring of this story resides firmly in the body horror caused by natural ageing and unnatural pain, and also in a deep-seated desire to gestate and give birth to a child of my own. There’s some of the loneliness and agoraphobia I felt as a young man, along with a healthy dose of the sexual desire and unrequited love that…well, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? I solemnly swear, though, that I’ve never kidnapped or physically harmed anyone. And as for being rich, now or ever, forget it. But I’m in these pages, and so are some people I’ve loved or hated, although I obviously won’t identify them. I had no intention of cutting so close to the bone with “Family Unit”, but the story required it of me, and was better for it.

The house and its ruin are real and so are the graveyard and the view. Many years ago, it was my habit to park in that very spot to drink hot chocolate and admire the sprawling grid of lights below in the company of a woman I loved. The sight is wasted on the dead, you might say, but I think it’s fitting. The Stoics would approve of this reminder of one’s mortality and one’s place in the universe.

My medical research soon proved that the procedure Liddy Thorrold undertook would likely be impossible, but to hell with facts. The question is the main thing: “Why would you want to try it?” That’s what kept me awake for so long, rehearsing this story over and over in my mind before finally getting it on the page. What could possibly so important…to make you do that?
Love. That’s what I settled on. And family.

Little else is responsible for so much horror in the blood-soaked history of our species.

http://seanwilliams.com/

Paul Mannering on “The Still Warm”

When people ask me about why I write horror, I tell them, “I grew up on a farm.” The wise simply nod at that point and nothing further need be said. Those who grew up in the safe and civilised confines of a city tend to not understand what I mean.

Farms are places without filters, where children are exposed to the un-sanitised reality of life from an early age. My most vivid childhood memories are of strong family bonds, hard work, sex, birth, death. As children my older siblings and I midwifed pigs, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, cats, and even a few ducks. My parents were academics by trade (dad was a marine biologist before heading inland) so they believed in educating us with objective facts than the shield of subjective emotion.

For every birth, there was a death; pet lambs, proudly paraded at the annual country school’s pet show in spring, were proudly served as roast dinner the next winter. We watched on with interest as animals were butchered or put down due to injury and illness.

My mother was a physiotherapist (now retired) and she had actual human bones (a spine, a hand) that she used as part of her practice for educating people about joints and injuries.

When I was of an age to be potentially curious about such things, my parents asked if I had any questions about sex. I wracked my brain for hours trying to think of something I didn’t know. I understood the fundamentals of human biology. I knew that bulls and cows, boars and sows, dogs and bitches, all Did It the same way that I was peripherally aware grownups did and that’s where babies come from.

Those years of practical exposure to the potential horrors of life and death didn’t desensitise me to horror. Instead, I found myself more perceptive and less emotional. Of course, that awareness isn’t without its dangers. When my partner at the time was in the final stages of labour, a nurse asked if I was okay. I replied, “Yeah, it’s just like pulling calves.” A casual observation that quite rightly got me punched to the floor by my son’s mother.

We have all experienced powerlessness and times of impotent rage when terrible injustices are done. Knowing exactly how grim life can be gives me a framework to write horrific things. Not horror to revel in, or to take ghoulish delight, but to explore what it means to be human in situations where truly awful events take place.

It is why the horror that truly makes me shiver with the thrill of unease is the horror of the unnatural, the unexplained and the emotional forces unleashed when humans are pushed so far from comfort and certainty that they bring forth consequences that cannot be explained in the matrix of normal experience.

Samantha Murray on “The Hot-and-Cold Girl”

Ah pregnancy, isn’t it fun?

Maybe fun is not quite the right word. I know some people feel it to be wondrous and joyous and exciting, and perhaps it can be all of these things, sometimes. When I was not pregnant, and badly wanted to be, it was a much-desired and romanticised state.

For the most part though, I found pregnancy to be uncomfortable and weird and discombobulating.

The physical side of course—my internal organs all shifting around to make room for this new interloper, my ligaments loosening, my centre of gravity shifting, my lungs squishing up so that my breathing became shallow. And the weird undulating and alien distortions my stomach went through as the child grew inside me. All of this.

And perhaps too a more philosophical point that I felt keenly—for the first time my body was not working predominantly for me, was not putting me first. This little time capsule carrying an assortment of my genes was all-important and consequently I was now less-important, a carrier, a vessel, and somewhat more disposable—a means to an end.

If the baby needed nutrients my body would strip them from my blood no matter if it left me tired and deficient, my hair brittle with the lack. It came first, it got it all.

It may be beside the point that if given the choice I would have said of course, “Yes, take it, take it all, put the baby first!” But there was no asking, just an inexorable shifting of priority.
All of these feelings, give them just the slightest nudge, tweak them and twist them just a bit, and they tumble easily into horror.

And this is not even mentioning the birth—with the pain and the blood and the screaming!
And later, when my newborn child cried, and my breasts leaked milk, all by themselves, bypassing my rational sense of self all together, beyond my conscious control, just purely responding in a way that was raw and primal and somewhat disturbing.

All of it was crying out to be turned into a story to submit to the fabulously dark Spawn anthology, and became “The Hot and Cold Girl.”

https://twitter.com/samanthanmurray

Robyn O’Sullivan on “Expel the Darkness”

When I first read the intriguing title of the proposed anthology--Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies—I had no intention of submitting a story. However, memories from my days as a maternity nurse in the mid-1970s surfaced and, over the next week or so, I was plagued by story ideas. I gave in and started to mess around with plots involving the possible outcomes of ingesting unknown substances during pregnancy. After much rumination and mulling over different scenarios, I hit upon a likely premise.

My protagonist would be young and inexperienced. Even so, for my story to be feasible, isolation from family had to be a major part of the backstory; therefore, the character would need to be in a different country. This factor meant that the setting was crucial. Should it be a major city? Maybe Paris or Rome. Perhaps a rural area such as Provence or Tuscany… That’s when I hit on the perfect place to stage my horror tale.

About 20 years ago, I holidayed in rural Italy, staying in a farmhouse near a beautiful medieval village. Despite the passage of time, memories of that glorious region are strong and clear. Rolling hills, vineyards, delicious wine. A piazza, a palazzo, a duomo. Narrow cobbled walkways, stone houses, window-boxes overflowing with scarlet blooms. I knew these recollections would enable me to conjure an evocative location.

I was finally ready to write my story about a young Aussie in Europe. I hit the keyboard. Created a plot plan. The story flowed. The narrative played out. I had intended to stick to my plan. But, in the end, the final scene surprised me.

So, happily for me, mulling over that intriguing title--Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies—turned out to be “heaven-sent” because my story was accepted for inclusion.

http://robynosullivan.com

Geraldine Borella on “My Sweet Porcupette”

Who doesn’t have an horrific birth story to tell? Well…me, actually. My two baby boys arrived in a fairly textbook, non-horrific manner, two and a half years apart, both healthy and happy. (I was lucky, I guess.) And while no stork was involved in either of their deliveries, there was also no forceps, suction cap, 72-hour labour or emergency caesarean section either. Still, I’d heard the awful woes of other mums and knew there were many, many frightening stories to tell.

When presented with the challenge of writing a body-horror short (something I hadn’t done before) for Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, I wanted to highlight the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her child. I also wanted to add the element of surprise, and give the reader a journey to embark upon.

I started by researching difficult births and found a wealth of information on human and animal birthing stories. The human stories I’d invariably heard of before, but the animal stories fascinated. For instance, here’s an interesting fact to make your insides quiver: around 15 percent of spotted hyena mothers die during their first time of giving birth, as they have phallic-like genitalia that can tear apart. Frightening, huh? And then there’s the shingleback lizard. She gives birth to 1-2 baby lizards that take up a third of her overall bodyweight. Fancy giving birth to a second grader, anyone? Because that’s what it would be like.

My research got me thinking and daydreaming, plotting and scheming, and I was off and away. The story unfurled quite naturally from there, (no gas or epidural needed), as I drew upon the love I have for my own children to show the fierce protectiveness that motherhood brings. In the end, I think I managed to birth something quite satisfyingly horrific—“My Sweet Porcupette”—and I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.facebook.com/geraldineb4

SPAWN: WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES

CHECK OUT PART ONE HERE

DEBORAH SHELDON is an award-winning author from Melbourne, Australia, who writes short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum of horror, crime and noir. Her collection Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Collected Work’ Award. Her fiction has also been nominated for various Australian Shadows and Aurealis Awards, and long-listed for a Bram Stoker Award. As editor of Midnight Echo 14, she won the Australian Shadows ‘Best Edited Work’ Award. Other credits include feature articles, non-fiction books, TV scripts and award-winning medical writing. http://deborahsheldon.wordpress.com

IFWG PUBLISHING AUSTRALIA and its US-oriented imprint, IFWG Publishing International, are based in Queensland Australia and has been operating for 10 years. The Australian imprint’s releases are distributed through Novella in Australia and Gazelle in the UK and Europe. Most Australian publications are co-released through the International imprint and distributed through Chicago-based IPG, to our North American and Latin American readers. The Australian/UK imprint website:
https://ifwgaustralia.com/